Cola Competition: Diet Coke Overtakes Pepsi as America’s #2 Soda

Poor Pepsi! In the America’s Favorite Soft Drink ranking (according to sales), Pepsi’s just been bumped from the second-place spot. The soft drink has long had to play second fiddle to Coca-Cola’s first place spot, but now it doesn’t even hold that honor.

But it gets worse for ol’ Pepsi–not only has it lost its ranking but it’s been replaced with its arch rival’s partner, Diet Coke. Ouch! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that data is expected to reveal that “U.S. sales of Diet Coke overtook those of Pepsi-Cola for the first time in 2010”, a coup which would (obviously) make Coca-Cola pretty pleased with itself.

The sad thing is, this doesn’t exactly seem like a fair loss. It seems that Pepsi’s drop in ranking could be due to the fact that they’ve put some of their advertising budget to more charitable use.

According to the WSJ, “PepsiCo made a big bet in 2010, when it didn’t market its flagship cola on the Super Bowl or in other TV spots. Instead, it launched the Refresh Project, an online charitable-giving program that disbursed $20 million in donations ‘for refreshing ideas that change the world.'”